


So You Want to Be A Wizard

by Elfwreck



Category: Fox in Socks - Dr. Seuss
Genre: Apprenticeship, Crack, Gift Fic, Magic, Other, Yuletide 2013, energy work, spellcraft, warping childhood icons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:48:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/pseuds/Elfwreck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Knox is a magically-talented young man who wants to be a wizard. Mr. Fox is the wizard who lives on the edge of town. <strike>They fight crime!</strike> Knox discovers that wizardry is a lot more disturbingly erotic than he'd ever thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So You Want to Be A Wizard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minutia_R](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/gifts).



> Many thanks to G. for beta.
> 
> Minutia_r, I loved this prompt. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It's designed to be read side-by-side with the book (or by someone who knows the book very, very well), but should stand up well enough without that.
> 
> Everyone else,  
> I am so, so sorry for warping your childhood memories.

Knox Pifflebizzy stood in front of the odd, crooked house, with its windows at strange angles and spires that were more suited to a castle than a ramshackle house at the edge of town. he was working up the courage to knock--everyone told him this was his destiny, and he wanted to believe them, but it was such a big step. Sure, he could do a couple of magic tricks--wave his fingers to put out a candle, clap his hands to crack open an egg--but a lot of people could do a few tricks.

He could do so much more, they said. He just needed training. So here he was, on the porch of the wizard's home, ready (almost ready) to ask to become an apprentice. He raised a half-closed fist to knock.

The door flew open, almost smashing into his toes (he jumped back just in time) and a spry, red-headed man in a long furry vest grabbed his hand and shook it effusively.

"Hello! Hi there! Glad to meet you! Welcome, good day and aloha! What brings you to my humble abode this fine spring day?" 

Knox tried and failed to pull his hand away as he looked around the neighborhood. The trees were half-full of red leaves, and some of them were bare.

"But... it's autumn," he said 

"Eh?" said the man, stepping out onto the porch and looking around. "So it is! Very perceptive, you are, young fellow. So, what brings you to my humble abode this fine autumn day?"

Knox had the disturbing feeling that they'dve gone through this twice if it was night.

"I, um, that is, I have this, I can, with candles and eggs, and my friends said, um, that you were a wizard, um, and I..."

"AHA!" he exclaimed, and Knox took a step back. (He couldn't step back more than that; the man still hadn't released his hand.) "Oho! So you're the new apprentice I've been hearing about!"

"You have? I mean, I am? I mean, I'd like to be, if..."

"Come in, come in!" the man said, dragging him into the house. "So much to do! So little time! I'm not getting younger, you know." He paused, and looked down at his body. "Nope, not getting younger." He sighed. "But you, m'boy,. are plenty young enough for the both of us! Now, what's your name, young fellow?" He shot a look down to Knox's crotch. "It is fellow, isn't it? You seem awfully tall to be a lass. And those aren't traditionally ladies' clothes in these areas. Still, if you are, I don't judge; I don't need an apprentice to be a particular gender. 'M not that kind of wizard." He waggled his eyebrows at Knox, who had no idea what to make of that.

"Erm, yes, I'm a fellow. A boy. A man, I mean." As of three weeks ago, Knox was an adult, and his parents had almost shoved him out of the house with a demand that he go learn a useful trade. He tried to remember what else he was supposed to tell the man. "Knox. My name is Knox. Knox Pifflebizzy. I'm from..."

"Ah, of the Casbahmopolis Pifflebizzies, no doubt."

"No, I don't think so," Knox said cautiously. "No one in my family's ever mentioned..."

"No matter. If it's not those Pifflebizzies, it's some other Pifflebizzies. The important thing is that you have a name. They're rather essential for wizards. At least, for wizards of my predilection, which involves word magic. Lots of words. You have perhaps noticed that I like to use words; keeps me in practice, it does; a word mage can't talk too much. Unless he's hiding word power in his name. Speaking of names..."

The man stopped pulling Knox through the room and turned to face him, still holding his hand. "The name's Fox. Antuneliulapsundrelinthalish Fox, but nobody can pronounce that and it wastes an awful lot of time to say it, so I just go by Fox. Mr. Fox, sometimes. Mr. Fox Wizard, even, some other times."

So this _was_ the wizard. Knox stared at him for a long moment. and then realized he was probably waiting for a reply. "Er. Glad to meet you, Mr. Fox. Wizard. I, I hope that--"

"Yes yes," Mr. Fox interrupted. "All well and good, now pay attention and come with me. But mostly, come with me so we can get you started." Mr. Fox pulled at his hand and started to lead him through the house. Knox stared at nothing and everything; the rooms were oddly-shaped and cluttered with strange objects that both intrigued and intimidated Knox. There were a lot of twists and turns, and odd corridors, and he was almost certain that all these rooms couldn't possibly fit in the house he'd seen from outside.

Eventually they arrived at a small, five-sided room with a slanted ceiling and two oddly-shaped windows. It had a short bed and an ornate moss-colored three-handled credenza.The bed had a large hole in the headboard and two smaller ones in the footboard. In the center of the room was a pedestal with a large, leather-bound book on it.

"And here we are!" Mr. Fox announced.

Knox looked around. "Where is here?" he asked with trepidation.

"Why, your room, of course! Every wizard's apprentice needs a room! Somewhere to study! To meditate! To be locked in with bread and water! To practice the onanistic arts!" He waggled his eyebrows again, which made the previous eyebrow-wiggling considerably more disturbing in retrospect.

Declining to address that, or to discuss the bed at all, Knox turned to the book. "Is that... is that a spellbook?"

"That, m'boy, is the _Xenotromicon_ , the finest book any wizard could ever read. I've read every word in it, spoken most of 'em aloud, and now it's time to hand it off to someone else. And that someone is you, Knoxie!"

Knox wasn't sure how he felt about "Knoxie," but he wasn't going to argue with a wizard. He stepped over to the book, which was covered with ornate runes, and reached out to open it.

Mr. Fox grabbed his hand and gently squeezed his fingers. "Not yet, m'boy. First you have to find out what kind of magic you'll be using. Then you read."

"There are… different kinds… of magic?"

"Of course! Many many kinds! Word magic, thread magic, potion magic, bread magic; magic with chalices and magic in palaces; magic wandage and magic bondage... As many kinds of magic as there are fish in the sky!"

Mr. Fox was almost dancing, leading Knox around in a tiny circle in the room. Knox was starting to get dizzy. Leaving aside the "fish" and "sky" issue, Knox settled on a question.

"But… but shouldn't I read about different kinds of magic first?" 

"Nonsense! You learn magic by practicing! Besides, the book won't have any words in it until you know what you need it to say."

"It won't? So it, ah, changes itself?" That sounded very strange. And interesting. A book that changed itself according to what a person needed to study. He wanted to look at it, so he leaned toward it and tried to pull away from Mr. Fox.

"Too much talking! Off to practice now! Come with me!" And Mr. Fox slid his hands up to Knox's wrists and backed out of the room, pulling him along. "To the workshop!" and he danced backwards and pulled Knox, who was almost tripping in his sandals, trying not to step on Mr. Fox's bare feet.

Knox was whirled through the house until he was more than half dizzy; they eventually arrived at a large room with stacks of boxes and oddly shaped shelves full of building materials and broken equipment of various sorts.

"First things first! Wizard's robes, boy, you need a wizard's robe to be a wizard!"

"I do?" Mr. Fox wasn't wearing a robe. He was wearing a furry vest.

"Well, you probably don't, but it'll help put you in the proper mindset. And I like seeing apprentices in robes; helps put _me_ in the proper mindset." He waggled his eyebrows again. Knox felt himself start to blush, but Mr. Fox had already turned away and was dragging boxes out of corners.

Mr. Fox opened boxes and scattered the contents around, first dumping what looked like several dozen chess sets on the floor, then rooting around in a box full of fabric until he pulled out a gold-colored robe with a grey silk collar. "Here you go!" He threw the robe at Knox, who caught it by reflex. The fabric had a velvety feel to it; Knox brushed his hand over it as he started to fold it.

"No no no; don't fold it up. Put it on!"

"Now?" Here? 

"No time like the present! Except for the past, of course, if it was a good part of the past. Or the future, which is a lot of times better than the present. At least, we hope so. Anyway. Yes yes, now. Put it on." Mr. Fox blinked at him expectantly. 

Knox gulped and turned around; he couldn't just get casually naked in front of this man he'd just met. His hands were shaking a bit as he pulled his shirt off over his head, then pulled on the long-sleeved robe. It was silky on the inside; very smooth and sensual; slid over his nipples with a cool slithery feeling that made him blush. Then he took off his trousers--he didn't own any smallclothes--and realized the silky fabric was going to be very, very distracting. He stood up, folded his clothes, and held them in front of him as he turned around to face Mr. Fox.

Who was staring at him. A lot. And nodding. Knox gulped. His hands twitched on his clothes.

That seemed to break Mr. Fox's concentration; he reached over and yanked them away. "Done with these! You're going to be a wizard; you'll have no use for peasant clothes!"

"I am?" Mr. Fox sounded so sure, so certain. Knox almost forgot his shyness. "I sure hope so, Mr. Fox…" 

"Course you are! We'll earn you your socks in no time!"

"Earn my… socks?" Knox had socks, for the winter, but he didn't wear them when the weather was at all pleasant; he didn't like to wear them out. 

"Of course! Every good wizard has a fine pair of socks that show his mastery of the various crafts of magic. It's quite symbolic. Untangling the mysteries of creation, twisting the threads of space and time, knitting together the ultimate truths of reality… and you can hardly cast eldritch spells and invoke powerful energies if you have cold feet. Every wizard has to earn his socks! That's how you know he's a great wizard! See, I have these lovely blue socks," he said as he pulled a pair of fine warm-looking socks out of his pocket and putting them on his feet as he stood, one at a time, bending his knee up as he balanced on the other foot. "And I have these other lovely blue socks," and he pulled out a pair from the other side's pocket, and placed them on his hands like mittens. They did seem to be well-worn into the shape of almost mittens.

"Socks?" Knox repeated. He was beginning to wonder if this was a real wizard at all.

"All the great wizards had great socks. Dumbledore, now there was a fine fellow; long purple stripey socks with furry lining on top. And Gandalf--who could forget Gandalf and his elf-knit socks made of out spidersilk. And Klarion--not that he's any fun to spend time with, really, but he does rock the schoolboy socks."

"Erm. I've never heard of any of those wizards," Knox said.

"Hm? Oh. They're maybe not active in this realm. Hm. Which wizards do you know about?"

"Ah. Merlin, I suppose, and--"

"Oho! Of course! Everyone knows Merlin! Merlin of the coarse-knit woolens, we call him! Hung out with that Lancey fellow so long they started swapping clothes!"

"Lancelot?" Merlin swapped clothes with Lancelot?

"Maybe that was it. Not important. Wizards keep track of other wizards, not their pets. Accomplices. Boyfriends. Whatever they're being called today."

Knox was now quite confused, and not at all certain this was a wizard, and his robe was distractingly pleasant as it shifted when he breathed. 

"But enough about other fellows. You're here! And it's time to learn some magic!" 

Knox smiled tentatively. "Yes, please."

"Okay, first… stand in this box." He pointed at the box that had held the chess pieces.

Knox raised his eyebrows, but stepped into the box. He glanced down at himself, clad in golden velvet, looking very much like a wizard's apprentice, and smiled. Even if he wound up leaving, he'd had a fascinating afternoon.

"Now, we study… spatial topography!" Mr. Fox waved his hands around a bit, then stepped into the box with Knox. It was quite a snug fit, and then Mr. Fox bent down (Knox swallowed hard) and kept bending down until he was staring at Knox's feet. "Up you go, then!" Then Mr. Fox put his stockinged hands on Knox's feet and _lifted him up_ , easy and simple; Knox didn't even feel unbalanced. Mr. Fox put Knox's bare feet on his head; Knox was still standing, and he bent over to watch and this was _fun_!

"All a matter of concentration. First the words, then the act. Nothing to it. Now you try!"

"Try what?" Knox said. 

"Now we put me on your head!"

"I don't think I can do that."

"'Course you can! Here, I'll let you keep the box; it'll help your concentration!" Mr. Fox grabbed his feet and lifted him down (which was a very odd sensation), gently setting his feet on the floor outside the box, then running his hands up the robe from Knox's ankles to knees to thighs, finally patting him on the hips as he stood. Before Knox could figure out how to think about that, Fox had stepped out of the box and put it upside down on Knox's head. 

"Now, you say 'Fox on box,' and we see if you can balance the energies yet!" 

Balance… what? There was a box on his head. "Fox… on box?" he said. Knox felt a thumping on top of the box.

"There you go, boy, you're a natural!" He felt shifting around as Mr. Fox moved on top of the box. Occasionally a hand or a foot dipped into his line of sight. Apparently, Mr. Fox was doing gymnastics up there.

"I'm… I'm lifting you up! On my head!" Knox said, wonderingly. It wasn't nearly as effortless as Mr. Fox made it look, but he was _doing_ it, doing real magic!

"Told you! Sensed it, I did; you have plenty of magical power; you just need to learn to focus it! Now, on to the next lesson!" Mr. Fox jumped down and gestured at the room. "Building!"

"Building?"

"Stacking and racking, mixing and fixing--primary wizard skills. Moving people around is easy; they like to move. Moving objects takes a bit more effort; they're stubborn."

Knox blinked at him. 

"We'll start small." And with that, Mr. Fox put two stockinged fingers in his mouth and whistled (Knox had no idea how), and a line of small feathered creatures poured out of a tiny door at the far side of the room. "These are my hens," Mr. Fox said. "Foxes should have hens, I decided; everyone says that."

They did look rather like chickens. Or yellow penguins. Odd little birds, more upright than most, that didn't act remotely birdlike as they filed into the room and lined up neatly by one of the shelves.

"They're not really birds," Mr. Fox leaned over and whispered to him. "They're magical constructs. But don't tell them that." 

Knox nodded. Not talking to the bird… things… was not going to be a problem.

Mr. Fox and the birds then whisked around the room, grabbing bricks and boards and more boxes; Mr. Fox muttered aloud, saying, "this goes _here_ and this goes _there_ and you go on top of that and this one goes inside of that one, and this one on the corner and that one on the side…" as he built a tower of precariously-balanced objects, with thin spires of stone and large boxes balanced above them as the hens lined up against the wall again. Knox was amazed. Nothing but magic could hold that in place.

"Next up: Time control!" Mr. Fox grabbed a broken clock (one side was caved in, and several of the springs were loose) off the shelf, and pushed it into his hands. "Slow it down! Speed it up!"

"Erm…" Knox said, but Mr. Fox was looking at him expectantly. "Slow down?" he said to the clock. Mr. Fox nodded, and gestured at him to start working with the supplies. He started to reach for one of the bricks, and Mr. Fox shook his head. 

"Come here," he said to the brick, feeling ridiculous. The brick didn't move.

But one of the hens left the wall and brought it to him, so maybe that counted. Mr. Fox was smiling at him. 

He focused on the bricks, and the wooden boxes, and tried to concentrate in the way he managed when he started candles by snapping his fingers. He could almost see little threads from his fingers, tugging on the items; the hens stopped looking like oddly-shaped birds and looked like… fuzzy glowing tool-kits; now a hammer, now a wrench, now a cluster of knives. It was easier not to look at them. Instead, he looked at the bricks and built a tower, or just _told_ the bricks to get themselves into a tower… and they did! Sometimes the bricks ambled over on their own; sometimes the glowing yellow bundles escorted them. He sat down in the box (it really was a comfortable box) as he directed the bricks, stacking them higher, barely noticing that several of the hens were lifting the box he was in so he stayed level with the top of the tower. When it came close to the ceiling, he stopped and looked down.

Mr. Fox was long way down. Knox gulped. The tower wobbled. The stack of hens wobbled. The tower collapsed, and the hens scattered, and Knox in his box fell to the workroom floor, breaking the box and bruising himself badly.

"Ow," said Knox. 

Mr. Fox nodded vigorously. "So you were! Amazing progress for a first day!"

Knox smiled through the pain. Then he passed out.

***

He woke up in the tiny bed, his feet sticking through the holes in the footboard, with Mr. Fox standing at his feet peering over him.

No. Standing *on* his feet. Surrounded by several of the hens. And juggling some glowing bricks. Mr. Fox leaned over and placed one of the bricks right on top of Knox, on top of his… shouldn't that hurt? Why didn't that hurt? Ooh, the brick was warm; he could feel it through the blanket and the velvet robe he was still wearing. Knox started to blush. 

"Like attracts like, you know," said Mr. Fox with a wink. "Bricks to give you strength; chicks to give you healing energy." He drew his gaze down to where he'd set the brick and added, "Let me know if that gets uncomfortable."

It should be uncomfortable--should be painful--but it wasn't. It was… pleasant. More pleasant than he wanted to deal with while Mr. Fox was standing right there staring at him. Knox shook his head in confusion, and realized he wasn't alone in the bed. A couple of the hens were on one side, and a row of warm bricks on the other. 

"I was… hurt? I was hurt. I fell down." He must have been here overnight; he was well-rested and barely felt any of the bruises he knew he'd gotten.

"You did! You got yourself very high up, and then poof, crash. All part of learning to be a wizard! Brought you back here to recover; always good to recover in a bed." Mr. Fox winked at him again. Then he reached into a pocket and said, "I've brought you your first apprentice socks! Go on; you've earned 'em!" Mr. Fox hopped down from where he was balanced on Knox's toes and waggled a pair of warm-looking woolen socks at him. Mr. Fox was still wearing his bright blue socks on his hands and feet.

Knox sat up--moving the brick carefully and hoping his erection wasn't noticeable through the blanket--and gingerly took the socks. "Um. Thank you?"

"No need to thank me; it was time. And speaking of time, today is time for you to meet other wizards. A friend of mine who's recently made her own pair of thread-magic socks is coming over; maybe she can show you a few tricks!"

"Ah… okay? That would be nice." Another wizard. A woman wizard. Should that be a witch? Knox was curious but wasn't sure he wanted to ask Mr. Fox; his answers were usually confusing. Instead, he opted for something more mundane.

"How soon will she be here? Will I… will we have breakfast first?"

"Oho! Good, good; always with the practical side of things. Good focus for a wizard to have. Lose that and you wind up trying to build snowflakes in summer and eating cake at funerals and all sorts of things that get you into trouble. Breakfast. Hm. Breakfast is a good thing for wizards, I think; we should definitely partake. Soon, even."

Knox decided that probably meant yes. He shifted the bricks around to the other side of the bed and tried not to even think about the hens. He followed Mr. Fox into a tiny kitchen with an oddly-shaped table; he tried to help but Mr. Fox shushed him and set him firmly in a chair, insisting that he knew where everything was, and if he didn't, it was high time he learned.

Within minutes, plates, pots and foods were dancing around the kitchen, along with a fire that Mr. Fox kept telling to get back into the stove. The curtains got a little scorched, and one of the cups was a dead loss, but eventually, Mr. Fox served up a meal of oddly-colored but tasty eggs, meat (it looked like ham, but Knox wasn't making any assumptions at this point), and toast. As soon as he'd finished, Mr. Fox whisked away the plates, grabbed Knox by the wrist, and led him back into the workroom.

It was different. Fewer shelves, less objects scattered around. Instead, there was a large green rug covering most of the room, and a couple of low platforms. Mr. Fox did a handstand and walked to the center of the room. 

"Now we wait."

Knox stood for a moment, unsure what to do, when a shimmering light flickered on one wall, opened itself to a large oval, and a woman bounded through! She had golden curls and a red dress that flared out from her hips, and Knox thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

On her feet were silken lavender socks. She bounced over to Mr. Fox and gave him a hug. 

"Sue!" Mr. Fox said. "Sue, I'd like you to meet my new apprentice, Knox Pifflebizzy, not of the Casbahmopolis Pifflebizzies. Knox doesn't seem to have a great affinity for word magic, so I'm trying to introduce him to other styles." 

Sue bowed and smiled at him, but didn't say anything. Knox was too overwhelmed to say anything to her. 

"Sue doesn't do much word magic," Mr. Fox continued. "She works with threads."

"Threads?" Knox said. 

"Magical energy threads. Show him, Sue; it's probably easier than explaining."

Sue nodded, and pulled out a tiny silver wand. She bent over and tapped the edge of her socks with it, and Knox could see a thin, glowing thread follow the tip of the wand. She twisted the wand in her hand, and the thread got longer; from a pocket, she pulled out a spool carved with runes, and wrapped the thread around it until it was full. 

She handed it to Knox. He took it, smiling shyly at her.

Mr. Fox interrupted their glance. "Now you try it. Take the thread and and twist it longer, just like Sue."

"But… but I don't have a wand!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Mr. Fox said, glance down at Knox's crotch. Knox managed not to cover himself with his hands. "But you probably shouldn't be weaving threads with that, at least, not just yet. Wands are advanced work. For now, just take the thread in your fingers and spin it longer."

Knox wiggled the spool a bit, looking for the edge of the thread. He could *almost* see it--the threads shifted around. When he looked up, Sue was smiling encouragingly at him, so he touched the threads, trying to find the end.

They felt silky-smooth and cool against his fingers, sliding over his skin just like the inside of the robe (no, don't think about that with Sue in the room; just work on the thread); a few times, he almost had the end, but it kept slipping out of his fingers.

"I can't… I don't think I can do this, Mr. Fox," he said sadly. Now Mr. Fox was going to tell him he couldn't be a wizard at all. 

"Nonsense! You just need to see how it's done. Sue, get Joe in here."

Sue walked over to the glowing portal on the wall, and pointed her wand; it glowed brighter, and in a moment, a tall man with dark flaring robes stepped into the room. He looked like a wizard--tall, strange-looking hat, long blue-black robes and a beaky nose. He nodded briefly to Mr. Fox, didn't acknowledge Knox at all, and went to face Sue.

They bowed to each other, and then began a mirror dance: each pulled out a wand, toched it to the other's heart, drew it down to the navel, and then pulled away--and a thin thread of light followed the wands now, drawing from either their magical clothing or their essential magical selves. They tugged on the threads and spun around; their clothing flared and fell and twisted around them, and Knox really wasn't sure he should be watching this. He especially wasn't sure he should be watching Joe, whose robes were apparently just as… comfortable… as Knox's, and who obviously liked Sue very much.

Sue didn't seem to mind. She smiled when Joe sidled up to her and shimmied her hips when he moved away. A complex web of lights stretched between her and Joe. She winked at Mr. Fox, who immediately went to her and started doing handstands next to her, walking on his stockinged hands around the two of them. 

"C'mere, Knox; if word-magic's not your strength, maybe it's thread magic. Jump in; get tangled!" And with that, he spun into the web and Sue promptly drew new lines from Mr. Fox's socks, adding shining blue threads of energy to the lavender and black. Knox took a cautious step forward, and found himself facing Joe, who was grinning down at him. Knox started to step back, but Joe wrapped a glowing line around him, and Knox found himself drawn closer instead. 

Sue came over to join them, which made Knox happy for a moment, but then things got… odd. Joe pressed very close to Knox and Sue started using the glowing energy-lines like thread, sewing little flower-shaped sparkles to Joe's robe. When the sparkling flowers brushed against Knox's robe, he felt a rush of heat; he started sweating. The shining threads were starting to hurt his eyes, and the robe was still disturbingly pleasant, and Knox was starting to have a reaction that he was sure wasn't polite around a lady, and he really didn't want Joe to notice.

Joe noticed. He raised his eyebrows and smiled, and wove threads around Knox's waist and hips and tightened them, outlining Knox's condition for all of them to see. Mr. Fox stood a few feet away and watched them, idly tugging on one of the threads, smiling as that sent little shivers through Knox. Sue's dress had ridden up to her thighs as she slid against Joe, and some of the threads were twining around her legs and disappeared under her dress; her head was tilted back and her eyes closed as she rocked against Joe. When Joe started to bend down to brush the sparkling flowers against Knox's crotch, he'd had enough. He pushed Joe away from him and reached out to snap the energy lines that entangled the three of them. 

He glared hard at Joe, making sure he wasn't moving closer again, then turned to Mr. Fox. "I can't do this! If this is what it takes to be a wizard, count me out!" And he stomped out of the workroom, trying to regain his composure. 

Mr. Fox followed him. "Wait wait! Don't leave yet; we're just getting started! If thread magic's not your thing, we'll find you something better!"

Knox turned on him. "It's not the thread magic! It's the… the way they… that's not right! I don't even know them!"

"Of course not. Or at least, not yet. You were _getting_ to know them," Mr. Fox said, looking confused.

"That's not how you get to know people!"

Mr. Fox looked skeptical, and started to say something.

"That's not how _I_ get to know people!" Knox glared at him.

Mr. Fox rubbed his chin with his hand. "What a shame. It's such a _fun_ way to get to know people. Still, if thread magic makes you uncomfortable, we'll try something else. Plenty of different kinds of magic; nothing is best for everyone. Something less… personal, perhaps. Yes?" Mr. Fox looked at him winsomely, making tiny nodding motions as if that would help Knox agree. 

Knox realized he didn't want to give up on being a wizard. And the threads had looked interesting at first; he just wasn't ready for… whatever that had been. He nodded once, and that was all the permission Mr. Fox seemed to need. 

Mr. Fox grabbed his arm and pulled him through the house again. "We'll try astral travel! Oh, the places you'll go; the things you'll meet; the people you'll do! Fine wizarding specialty, astral travel!"

Knox had heard of astral travel, sending one's mind out to other realms. It sounded very exotic and wizardly. "That sounds… nice. I could try that."

"Of course you could!" Mr. Fox slapped him on the back, and started almost dancing around him as he led him through the house, back to Knox's room. On the way, he grabbed a couple of small dark bottles from a bookshelf. "Here, drink this! We'll get started right away; no time to waste! Well, actually, there's plenty of time to waste, but we wouldn't want to do that, now would we? Seize the day! Drink up, boy, it'll put hair on your chest! Or other places! Or take it off!" And with that, Mr. Fox backed him up against his bed and nudged him to sit. 

Mr. Fox. popped the cork out of his own bottle and drank it down, and gestured at Knox to do the same. He opened it and sniffed it; it smelled like flowers. He took a small sip; it had an odd aftertaste, but wasn't bad.

"Drink! Magic potions work as a whole dose or not at all! Don't want to leave you behind and this is fast-working stuff!" Mr. Fox sat down next to him and nodded encouragingly.

Knox drank the potion. In moments, his head was spinning, then the room was spinning, then it dissolved until he and Mr. Fox were alone in a vast, hilly region on the edge of some kind of ocean or lake. 

"Where are we?"

"This, m'boy, is the astral! Or part of it! See the cobalt ocean--that's pure magical energy!"

The ocean was indeed a deep blue. It didn't even look normal aside from the color; it lapped against the shore slowly, like syrup more than water. Strange lights glimmered deep within it.

"The wizards who can master the energies of the cobalt ocean are some of the most powerful! The creatures that live here are incarnations of pure mana… let's see if we can find one!" Mr. Fox put a hand on his shoulder and started to lead him around this strange landscape. The grass on the hills was so dark it was almost black, and the shapes of the hills and outcroppings of stone looked almost melted. Knox was awed by the strangeness and a bit worried about what Mr. Fox had planned next.

He didn't have to wait long. They rounded the next hill and Mr. Fox seized him in a hug. "There it is! Didn't think we'd see one today, but luck is with is! You must be my lucky charm; it's been years since I've spotted a gugusé in the wild!" 

Knox couldn't figure out what he was talking about. Then Mr. Fox grabbed him by both shoulders and spun him to face… a bird. A huge, yellow goose with teeth, which was bending down to bite--not lick--at the ocean. It swept up a bit of the thick swirling liquid (mostly liquid, anyway) with its wing, then bit at it in the air. A thick string of blue trailed down its chest as it chewed on the … goo, was all Knox could think to call it.

"And we're so _close!_ " Mr. Fox whispered at him. "It must like you; I've never gotten this close to one on my own!" They were indeed only a few yards away; Knox wasn't sure how he'd missed seeing it. It must've been just behind the rocky ledge where it was standing. 

"Go ahead, m'boy. Taste the rainbow! Or at least, the blue part of it!" Mr. Fox gestured at the gooey water. "You might even wind up with a gugusé as a familiar!" 

Knox obligingly bent down and put his fingers into the goo. The surface rippled, and the gugusé looked over at him. It continued to chew, with blue goo dripping on its chest and from its wings, looking oily and sticky. Knox raised his fingers toward his mouth; the sharp smell of the goo made him light-headed. He touched his tongue to it, and the flavor was intensely sour and not at all pleasant.

The gugusé was nodding its head at him. He gulped, and looked into the ocean. The glimmering lights flickered and moved in the depths. He frowned. They didn't move like the water, or goo, was moving.

He pointed at them and asked Mr. Fox, "What are the lights?"

"The lights?" He peered into the ocean. "Ah. The lights. Those are manafish. Manaminnows, mostly. Eat enough of the mana ocean and you'll be able to see the rest of their bodies. And talk to them! Or eat them! Quite tasty, they are."

Knox looked at him in consternation. "I don't think I want to eat things I can talk to."

"Well, technically, you can talk to anything you can eat. Plenty of us do just that. 'Hold still, you little sausage; quit rolling around on the plate and get on the fork.' And you can technically eat anything you can talk to, although that's rather frowned upon in some places. But go ahead, try a bite of the ocean."

Knox looked at his sticky blue fingers, at the goo-covered gugusé which was now waddling toward him and snapping its teeth, and the flickering lights in the depths, and shook his head. "I don't think I can do this." He wiped his fingers off on the grass, because he didn't want to get the stuff on his robes.

"No? But it's…" Mr. Fox trailed off. "Well, it's actually rather unpleasant, most of the time. The gugusé has a nasty temper, anyway." Mr. Fox started leading him away from the hill. The gugusé was following, but it couldn't keep up. Knox suppressed a shudder.

"Let's get you back home and find something else. Brooms. Maybe you'll like working with a broom." 

Knox thought more witches than wizards had brooms, but he was willing to try it. Especially if it got him away from the creepy-looking gugusé. 

"How do we get home?"

"Hm? Oh. We're already home. Astral travel, remember? We're not here; we just think we are. Very metaphysical. Or metaphorical. Or metastatic. Something like that. The astral's a kind of meta-place and it attracts meta-words."

Knox had no idea what that meant other than his question was still unanswered.

"But… how do we get home?" he repeated. "Or how do we… stop thinking we're here?"

"We wait for the drugs to wear off! Important talent for a wizard, knowing his dosages and how to wait out a bad trip. Astral Blue's kept in tiny bottles for a reason; shouldn't be long now. And you're doing great, Knoxie; a trip to the astral is dangerous--we could've started in the middle of the ocean surrounded by manasharks, but you kept us on the shore. Fine navigation skills there, worth developing."

Drugs? Mana _sharks_? They could've started in the middle of the ocean? Knox resolved to ask more questions before following Mr. Fox's instructions in the future.

"So we just… wait?"

"Wait and keep walking. Should be getting back any time now… yep, there we go."

The hills in the distance were were twisting and fading, and the dark grass under his feet turning brown and flattening until he realized he was staring at the boards of his bedroom floor.

Mr. Fox hopped up and grabbed his arm. "So, no astral travel. On to bigger and better things! Or at least, harder and longer things! It's time to meet the Wessels and their brooms!"

Knox blinked, trying to reorient himself, and said, "... Brooms?" as Mr. Fox dragged him out of the room.

"Yes, yes; brooms! There are those who think brooms are entirely for witches, but really, they're just toolophobic. A wizard can use enjoy a good broom just as much as a witch! Why, in my younger days, I--" he stopped short, and Knox almost walked into him. "Nevermind. This may not be a good time for that story. There'll be plenty of broom action today without it." 

That was more than a little worrisome, but Mr. Fox didn't say anything else until he'd led Knox into the yard behind the house, where two men were flying around on brooms. Mr. Fox waved at them. 

"Bim! Ben! Come down here and meet my new apprentice, Knox! You'll like him; he's quite the big fellow!" 

Ben and Bim zipped down to the ground, holding their brooms between their legs, and Knox realized he towered over them. They looked him up and down with a bit more scrutiny than was comfortable. Then each of them reached out and grabbed one of his hands.

"Hi, this is my brother Bim and his broom," Ben said, shaking Knox's hand and bumping his brother on the hip.

"Hi; don't mind Ben; his broom's always hard," said Bim, shaking Knox's hand and giving a little twist to his hip in return.

"Yeah, this is my BROOM stick," said Ben, shaking it at him a little bit.

"Er, nice to meet you both?" said Knox as he started to pull his hands away.

"You could touch my broom," said Bim.

"Or mine," said Ben.

"Or both at once," they said in chorus. "We don't mind."

Knox abruptly let go of both hands. "Erm, no, thanks." He took a small step away from them, only to find that Mr. Fox had his hand on Knox's back.

"Just watch," said Mr. Fox. "They'll show you how broom magic works. If you like it, you can make a broom of your own. You can borrow one of theirs until you get yours working." 

Knox was pretty sure he wanted nothing to do with either of their brooms, but before he could say anything, the two men started flying again, diving and rolling around each other. They flew very close to each other, grabbing at each others' brooms. Once, Bim grabbed Ben's broom and spun him around, bending the broom almost in half before Ben slipped away. Another time, Ben tilted himself sideways and put his foot on the bristles of Bim's broom and grabbed the top with his hand and the broom almost folded in half. Knox was terrified it was going to break and the two of them were going to fall out of the air.

They flew around closer and tighter and lower, until they could've dropped their feet and touched the ground, and then each of them reached out and grabbed the tip of each other's broom as they spun in a fast, tight circle. They flew so fast it they made a cyclone, a whirling, spinning tunnel of light and magic between them. The two men were breathing hard--still smiling, but obviously exerting themselves; their arms were tensed from holding the brooms so hard.

Knox realized that Mr. Fox was stroking his lower back. He shivered, and started to step away, when both the men grunted loudly and the tips of both broomsticks broke off in their hands. The cyclone exploded into sound and light--a sound like thunder shook the trees and sparks and flickers filled the yard. Knox was pushed back by the explosion--if it weren't for Mr. Fox's hands, he would have fallen over. 

He blinked to clear his head, and when the sparkles fell to earth, Bim and Ben were standing, proudly holding their brooms with the broken tips. 

"How's that, m'boy? Look like fun?" 

Knox stared at him in shock.

"The tips are repairable, you know. Easy to fix. Built to break--that's the whole point of broom magic: you build up a charge and shoot it off all at once. Of course, there's the matter of refractory time, but you're young and hearty; I'm sure you'd recover quickly." Mr. Fox waggled his eyebrows.

Knox just continued to stare at him. That was certainly easier than staring at the other two men.

"No?" Mr. Fox looked disappointed. "Well, alright." He turned back to his friends. "Bim, Ben; thanks for stopping by, but I suspect Knoxie just isn't up for studying broom magic from men. I may need to find a witch to help him. Maybe your aunt Elphie is free someday?"

The two men shook their heads in unison. "No, she's--"

"Ah, right, caught up in that thing with the farmgirl, isn't she? Still, though? She really has had long enough. Let her know that that type never gives in if you give them time to catch their bearings." 

"We've told her," said Ben. 

"She won't listen," said Bim.

"Just keeps going on about her 'Dorable Dorothy,' and a pair of slippers," Ben continued. 

"She wears blue ankle socks," added Bim.

"Ah yes, the slippers. And socks. Well. Once a witch or wizard gets their heart set on footwear, you know how it is." 

The men nodded solemnly. Knox inched back toward the house, but Mr. Fox grabbed him by the waist and spun him around to face Bim and Ben, who nodded to him.

"Nice meeting you, Knox," said Ben.

"I'll take you for a ride on my broom anytime," said Bim with a wink.

Knox smiled weakly, but the two of them didn't seem to need any more than that. They glanced at each other, tilted their brooms up, and flew off.

Knox sagged in relief. He wasn't sure what had just happened, but he was glad it was over. 

"Lunchtime!" announced Mr. Fox, and Knox realized he was ravenously hungry. "Let's take a walk and have a picnic!" 

A walk sounded good. Getting out of the odd house with its potions and strange workroom sounded even better. 

"That sounds great, Mr. Fox," Knox said. "I could help prepare."

"Oh no no no; I couldn't do that to an apprentice. Can't have you overworking. Food magic is intense stuff," said Mr. Fox. "All those spices and vices, the flicking and licking… best to leave that to the experts."

"But… but aren't I supposed to help? And… I have worked with food before." He had even, he supposed, worked with 'food magic.' At least, he'd cracked eggs with magic. 

"Well, perhaps. But I want this to be a surprise!" He smiled up so earnestly at Knox that Knox couldn't help smiling back. "Okay then! Off we go, to Duck Lake and the Breezy Trees Forest!" And Mr. Fox linked his arm through Knox's, like they were courting, and led him away from the yard and down a little path next to a stream.

They walked until the stream opened up to a lake where ducks were swimming peacefully. A little farther down the path was a tiny crooked house with the door swinging open.

"Aha!" said Mr. Fox. "Luke's not home! He's probably at the lake; let's see if we can find him."

More people, thought Knox. What strange kind of person is Luke going to be? 

As if he could hear the thought, Mr. Fox said, "Luke's strong in animal magic. He draws power from his familiar and the two of them can share senses--he can see through his duck's eyes, and vice versa. Or versed vices. Something like that."

"His familiar is a… duck?" Knox had heard of familiars, but they were always cats or toads or maybe something scary like a wolf. He'd maybe heard of a raven as a familiar, but not a duck.

"Yes, a duck. Duck's for luck, you know. Luke's a very lucky fellow. He can work with all sorts of animals, but ducks are what he gets along with best. Ah, there he is; let's go say hello."

Mr. Fox pointed at a grassy mound next to the water. A duck stood on the edge of the shore, dipping its beak in the water and tilting its head back to drink. Right behind that, a man lay out flat on the grass, dipping _his_ head in the water and tilting his head back to swallow. Then the duck fluttered its wings, and the man shook his arms in exactly the same way. The man and duck were moving in perfect unison, one set of actions shared between the two of them.

"That's… Luke?" asked Knox.

"Yes, lucky Luke and his plucky duck," said Mr. Fox, "licking the lake again. Luke does like his lake. And his ducks. Especially that one." 

The duck had stopped licking the water and turned to Luke, tapping his ear with its beak. Luke rolled to face the duck and kissed its forehead, then rolled onto his back. The duck waddled onto his chest and kissed him (or at least, tapped his lips with its beak), which seemed friendly enough--Knox had seen pets do that with their masters. Then the duck turned around and walked down Luke's chest to his thighs, and turned around to settle on his crotch. 

"Luke's going to get laid!" said Mr. Fox.

Luke's head was thrown back in an expression of pure bliss as the duck shifted and nipped at his pants.

"Ah. Yes. Um. I think Luke looks pretty busy right now. Maybe… maybe we shouldn't interrupt him."

"Hm?" Mr. Fox tore his eyes away from Luke and the duck. "But I thought you already had some affinity for egg magic?"

"Breaking eggs!" Knox blurted. "I can clap my hands and break eggs." 

Mr. Fox frowned. "Well, then I suppose you shouldn't meet Luke right now. Maybe later. Later is such a fine time, don't you think? It's just so _big_. Why, later is posilutely immense; there's plenty of room in it for a meeting with Luke."

Knox was not sure he wanted to meet Luke later, but he was entirely certain he didn't want to meet him _now_ , so he just nodded. And sighed. He wanted to be a wizard, but everything he'd seen so far was just so _weird_.

"I don't know if I can do this, Mr. Fox," he admitted. 

"Do what? Walk by the lake? I know it does give some people problems, what with the bumps and cracks in the path, and the pollen, and the sunshine, but you seem to be walking okay, and breathing--breathing is such a _good_ thing for wizards to do; can't emphasize that enough--and you don't seem to be a vampire…"

Mr. Fox broke off and grabbed Knox's face, pulling his lips back to look at his teeth. "Nope, no vampire." He grabbed Knox's arm again and continued to lead him toward the trees. "So what's the problem?"

"Being an apprentice, I mean. I'm not good at _any_ of it. Maybe I'm just wasting your time."

Mr. Fox stopped and turned to face him. He stared at Knox, gesturing at him to bend down until they were eye-to-eye. He smiled into Knox's confused, worried face, and put one stockinged hand on Knox's chin. In a gentle, soothing voice, he said, "You can do this. It's your destiny. Don't ever doubt that. We just have to find your path, your tool, your special trick. Every wizard has one." 

Knox gave a tiny shake to his head--he wasn't sure at all about this. 

"Trust me; you have one. And if you can't do that, just relax and enjoy the picnic, and we'll see what else I can find. There are _many_ kinds of magic… just leave yourself in my hands, and we'll find yours. Can you do that? Just enjoy the picnic?"

Knox nodded slowly. He could at least do that. A picnic sounded nicely non-threatening. Downright ordinary.

He should've known better.

They reached the edge of the forest, and Mr. Fox called out, "A tiskit, a tasket; a green and yellow basket," and a picnic basket--with green and yellow cloth--fell out of a tree. Mr. Fox caught it deftly and shoved it at Knox, and said, "this one!" and started climbing the tree.

"This one what?" said Knox, still staring at the basket in his hands.

Mr. Fox looked down at him. "Climb up here. We're having our picnic in the treetops! Picnics are best in breezy trees!"

"I don't know…"

"Of course you can! Hop up! I'll tell the tree not to let you fall!" And Mr. Fox spoke to the branches, which obligingly moved to make foot- and hand-holds for Knox.

Knox wasn't at all sure he wanted to climb a tree that was helping him--what if it changed its mind halfway up--but he was hungry, and he had just agreed to stick with this a little while longer. He hooked the basket under one arm and climbed up.

The tree was very tall. It and a couple of nearby trees made a small platform of branches for them, up near the top; he could see over all the other trees. He tried not to think about how high up they were.

Mr. Fox started laying out the picnic--small loaves of bread and several types of cheese; Knox recognized a couple of them but not all. The wind was very cold, and Knox shivered. 

"Don't worry about the cold," Mr. Fox said. "I'm sure we can think of some way to warm you up." And he waggled his eyebrows again.

Knox's eyes grew wide. "Um. I'm sure I'm fine. It's nothing. Really." Whatever Mr. Fox had in mind as a warming-up activity, Knox was pretty sure he didn't want it.

"You sure? Okay." Mr. Fox shrugged. "Just have some lunch."

Knox reached for the bread and cheese and started to eat, when he felt a pinch on his leg. He slapped at it, and then felt another one. 

"Ouch! I think I'm being bitten," he said. He looked down, and the branches were crawling with many tiny pinching bugs. 

"Oh, sorry," said Mr. Fox. "Tree fleas. They don't like visitors much. Their tree does, but they get so jealous." 

He turned to the branches and spoke to the bugs. "You _know_ your host is polyamorous," he told them. "It's not polite to harass her guests. If you want someone to pinch, you'll need to find them yourself. Consensual pinching only, that's the watchword of the day; no feasting on unsuspecting visitors."

Knox thought he heard a small huff from one of the bugs, but they moved away from him on the branches, and he managed to get through his lunch without any more harassment from the bugs. But it was very chilly so high up, and by the time he was done, he was achy from trying to balance on trees, and cold, and very uncomfortable. When they reached the ground again, he tried talking to Mr. Fox again.

"I think I want to go home," he said. "I can't _do_ this. It's all so…" _kinky_ , he didn't say. " _Strange_. And I'm cold," he said with a sniffle.

Mr. Fox said with a smile, "I have just the thing! A good fight will warm you up!" 

Knox was so flabbergasted that he didn't resist when Knox led him deeper into the woods, into a little clearing where a couple of men in blue-and-black uniforms were fighting in a ring on the ground. A circle of other men surrounded them, making bets and mumbling about whose odds were better. 

Mr. Fox said, "This is the weekly Tweedle Club Meetup. The first rule of the Tweedle Club is, you don't talk about the Tweedle Club. Except that I do, because I'm a wizard, and I can talk about things nobody else can talk about."

Knox blinked. And watched the men fight. They were very fit, evenly matched; they looked so alike that he couldn't tell them apart except that one had a split lip and the other had a bruise on his neck, right at the edge of the uniform. They punched at each other, and Split Lip stepped into a puddle and then slammed his foot down to splash the other. 

In response, Bruised Neck pulled a leather paddle out of his back pocket and swung with that. Split Lip pulled out his own paddle, and the fight got more intense. They weren't just punching; they were kicking, and wrestling, dragging each other into the puddle, hitting each other with the paddles (which they seemed to enjoy a bit more than Knox would expect), and laughing and grunting as they fought.

"Bipper! Get in here!" one of them yelled; they were too closely tangled for Knox to be sure which. One of the guys on the sidelines stepped into the ring and started rolling up his sleeves.

"Jipper! You too!" the other guy rolling in the puddle said, and a man who might've been Bipper's twin stepped into the ring. As he did so, another man moved forward. 

"Like hell am I letting you four have all the fun," he said, and pulled out his own paddle. Soon, the five of them were rolling, punching, kicking and sloshing around, and the ring of people backed up to make more space for them. At one point, Bipper picked up Bruised Neck and threw him into the audience; Bruised Neck got up and charged back in, but the three guys he'd been slammed into didn't look happy.

Mr. Knox stroked his chin for a moment, and then winked at Knox. "We'll build a containment circle!" he said. "Follow me!" 

Knox wanted to make sure that Mr. Fox stayed between him and the five burly guys hitting each other with paddles, so as Mr. Fox started walking around the edges of the fight, Knox stayed by his side. 

Mr. Fox was muttering as he walked. "Circle round, fighting bound; paddles thwacking; power whacking; tangled muddly; splashy puddle…." and while he spoke and walked, Knox could see a hazy circle surround the men, like a dome of glass over the fighting ring. It was open at the top--Knox could tell because sometimes the water splashed, and it hit the sides of the dome and fell down, but it splashed out the top. 

Mr. Fox looked at him. "Have to build an outlet; bottle the energies too hard, and they explode. Rather like a broom--" he winked-- "but bigger. After all, these guys are bigger than brooms." 

When he's walked around the circle three times, he shook a finger at it. "Now stay PUT," he says firmly. 

The men inside continued to fight. "Hey, Fox," one of them said. "You sure this thing'll hold?" And he threw one of the other men against the side of the dome. Tiny spiderweb cracks appeared in it.

"Hm," said Mr. Fox. "I believe this calls for special measures." He snapped his fingers--Knox has no idea how he did that through the socks--and gestured at the hunting dog that's sniffing around the circle. He bent down to talk to it.

"Make you a deal. You keep the energies in this dome contained, and I'll give you a tasty treat. Okay?"

The dog barked once at him.

Knox pulled a small bowl out of his pocket, tapped the side of it, and it filled with savory noodles in sauce. He set that down near the dog. "Here you go." The dog ate a few bites of noodles, then ran around the circle once. When the dog passed the cracks, they vanished. He settled in front of the bowl of noodles and continued eating.

The men in the circle had switched from punches and kicks to a lot more wrestling. Some of their shirts had been ripped off, and they sported red marks where the paddles hit. 

Mr. Fox looked at them for a long moment, and then back to Knox. "You could join them, you know. Find out if your path to power involves, hm, more physical actions."

Jipper had pinned Split Lip Guy and was grinding against him in a way that didn't seem to have anything to do with fighting. Split Lip Guy was reaching over to the guy who'd joined last, and smacking him on the back of the thighs with the paddle.

Mr. Fox was waggling his eyebrows again, and Knox had had enough. He growled with anger, and something snapped inside him. 

Epiphany! He could _see_ how all the energies tied together, and feel how the circle was containing the energy of the men, and how the dog was maintaining the circle. And since only the dog was maintaining the shield, Mr. Fox was outside of all the energy-flows. He marveled at how it made sense now; Mr. Fox had been right--he just needed to find a method that let him tap into his own power.

He managed to refocus his energies; since he couldn't get away from his confusion and dizziness, he instead contained it, placed it on his hands and _shoved_. 

Knox realized that his power couldn't be focused through words or mental activities, but through actions, and through his hands. He shoved Mr. Fox back, then picked him up and threw him into the circle with the Tweedles, spilling much of the energies out and disrupting what looked like the beginnings of an orgy. 

Mr. Fox and the Tweedles found their energies dissipating into confusion, and Knox absorbed that, feeling himself grow strong and confident. He looked at Mr. Fox's stunned face, and the five partially-naked men now sprawled on the ground, and smiled. He tilted back on his heels, wiggled his toes, and contemplated what kind of socks he was going to wear in the future.

With a spring in his step, a smile on his face, and a cheerful bulge in the lower part of his robes, he waved goodbye to Mr. Fox and went off to find Sue. Or maybe Joe. He decided he would need to practice mudras and dance-energies before he would be ready to rejoin Mr. Fox and show him exactly how well he'd learned to use his hands.

He wasn't sure if he was going to continue his apprentice ship with Mr. Fox, but surely the adventures he'd had so far were worth writing a book about.


End file.
